30 Day Film Challenge: Day 27

Day 27: Your Favorite Independent Film

Masculin féminin (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)

This seems like such an arbitrary distinction, particularly for someone like me who watches a lot of movies. With that being said, I have to go with Masculin féminin, my favorite Godard film. I know that calling a Godard film "adorable" and "cuddly" seems like an incredibly wild stretch, but with Jean-Pierre Léaud in the lead role, how could it be anything else?

30 Day Film Challenge: Day 09

Day 09: A Film With Your Favorite Actor (Male)

The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache, 1973)

French New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud has been my favorite actor for a couple years now and this is his greatest work. The film is sadly unavailable (legally) but it is well worth seeking out (illegally). The Mother and the Whore reveals a newfound depth from an actor we thought we all knew.

Jean-Pierre Léaud Being Adorable

This was Jean-Pierre Léaud being adorable. Thank you.

Top 20 Rentals of 2010

I consider a "rental" any movie I have seen in 2010 that wasn't actually released in 2010 (or, in the case of a few films, some films released in 2009). Although there weren't as many gems as there were last year, the quality of these films is very nearly equal to those. Here's what I thought was the best, in order from top to bottom:

A
The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache, 1973)
The grand finale to the French New Wave movement. Eustache and star Jean-Pierre Léaud evoke both the talkiness of Godard and the romance of Truffaut in this evocative, emotive drama of love. Léaud's shining moment as an actor; some of his monologues would put more "traditional" actors to shame.






The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962)
A two-hour nightmare: perfectly captures the increasing confusion and insanity while never forgetting the sense of dread and doomed fate that hangs over Anthony Perkins' Josef K.

Twist and Shout (Bille August, 1984)
Two Danish best friends--one emotionally damaged, the other in love--deal with racing hormones while balancing adult-sized burdens, not limited to pregnancy, a mental mother and an abusive father. Twist and Shout sounds unremarkable, even slightly rote, but sensitive direction from August makes you care deeply about these damaged people. (More on Twist and Shout)

Applause (Rouben Mamoulian, 1929)
The first proof that these new-fangled "talking" pictures may prove to be just as fruitful artistically speaking as their silent predecessors. (More on Applause)

Z (Costas-Gavras, 1969)
Costas-Gavras' breakthrough film is the rare political thriller that manages to be both an intelligent, indicting commentary on the then and now political climate and compulsively watchable entertainment. The Raoul Coutard cinematography, with his usual palette of severe reds and blues, and Jean-Louis Trintignant, who manages to make his blue sunglasses an extension of his character, make this high-charged film cool.

A-
Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
Speaking of cool, Alain Delon is the very definition with his perfectly positioned hat and icy cold demeanor in this stripped down, both dialogue-wise and visually, gangster film.









Another Woman (Woody Allen, 1988)
Gena Rowlands plays Woody Allen with surprisingly fantastic results in this sober, introspective drama more in line with Interiors than Hannah and Her Sisters.

Claudine (John Berry, 1974)
Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones tackle "the race problem" in 1970's New York with the kind of head-on confrontation of the issues and stylized delivery more associated with sketch comedy (the Bunifa sketches on MadTV, for one) than the usual race film we think of then and now.

Tout Va Bien (Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972)
Godard and Gorin's call to arms in a post-'68 France is one of the most reactionary films I've ever seen. After watching the film, I wanted to riot in the streets and protest everything that's wrong with this country. Such is the power of Godard when he's in the right mood.

No End in Sight (Charles Ferguson, 2007)
Nothing in No End in Sight is exactly a breaking news headline when viewed in 2010, but considering the film came out in 2007, it's almost downright prophetic.

They Won't Forget (Mervyn LeRoy, 1937)
A white Northerner is accused of murdering one of his Southern students. The prosecutor has very little in the way of tangible evidence so he turns the town violently against the accused, eventually turning the case into a nationwide battle between the good ole boys of the south and the uppity Northerners. This Warner Brothers (surprise, surprise) flick is one of the most damning and truly progressive films of the entire Studio Era.

The Sundowners (Fred Zinnemann, 1960)
The rare family drama that works as both a 60's-era big budget crowdpleaser and an introspective look at the inner-workings of an atypical family. The characters are just as full of disappointments as they are triumphs.

Edvard Munch (Peter Watkins, 1974)
A biopic of the now famous painter who battled a hostile art community who refused to see his work as legitimate "art." Told in a highly unusual way, Watkins' intense stylization often walks the fine line of discomfort as Geir Westby's Munch often stares right into the camera as if he's staring right into the audience's soul.

The Collector (William Wyler, 1965)
Terence Stamp falls in love with Samantha Eggar so he does what any other normal male would do in such a predicament: he kidnaps her, giving her anything she wants while keeping her locked up in his basement. Stamp is a great addition to the oeuvre of Emotionally Damaged Boys and the film's complicated and often shocking intertwining of sex and slavery is shocking and fascinating at the same time.

The Happy Ending (Richard Brooks, 1969)
I feel like my love for this film has died slightly in the months since seeing it, but I can still appreciate Brooks and star Jean Simmons baring their souls and real-life marriage for everyone to see.

Best of B+
Shut Up and Sing (Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, 2006)
The fall and rebirth of the Dixie Chicks. Uncomfortable, often times provocative, this documentary gets into nitty gritty of dealing with a PR nightmare and how to retool a once lucrative career because of one infamous sentence.







The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, 1962)
I hate the British New Wave, but Richardson's film is an anomaly for the time period: it's more The 400 Blows than Tom Jones. Tom Courtenay, playing the Antoine Doinel of this film, is slowly becoming a favorite actor of mine.

A Hatful of Rain (Fred Zinnemann, 1957)
Zinnemann again, this time with a Broadway adaptation depicting the life of a heroin junkie, his wife, his brother and the horrible circle of co-dependency they live in day after day. Tony Franciosa got the Oscar nom back in '57, but Don Murray and Eva Marie Saint, as the husband and wife, respectively, are the real knockouts.

The Cell (Tarsem Singh, 2000)
I never thought this would be my kind of movie in a million years, but Tarsem's heavy, lush visuals are jaw-droppingly good. And it contains the best performance from J. Lo we're ever likely to see; her facial expression the moment she awakes from the killer's psyche still gives me chills.

King Rat (Bryan Forbes, 1965)
Bryan Forbes, director of such underseen "women's films" like The L-Shaped Room and The Whisperers, tackles men in a POW camp and achieves the same results he did with the women. The film chronicles how these men slowly start to lose their humanity in an artificial world where anything goes and you have to do anything it takes to stay alive. Tom Courtenay, as the uptight British officer trying his damnedest to be an honorable soldier but slowly realizing it may not be worth it, is once again a treat in this film, but George Segal and James Fox as amoral officers who seek control of the camp (and may or may not have a homoerotic vibe around them) are just as great.

Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Somehow, I've managed to either to go 15 or so years since seeing this film or never seeing at all. Even more surprising was the film itself, with Spielberg at the top of his Movies as Entertainment game.

Xavier Dolan Really Wants to Get in My Pants

He clearly knows the way to my heart (and my groin), as exemplified in his thoughts on Jean-Pierre Léaud in The 400 Blows--among other films--in the recent Criterion Collection newsletter:

"Léaud at the top of his game; he did create, with time, his own acting rules, his own school in his mind, and he opened the doors to many other actors and actresses. One never really says, 'Léaud is so bad in this or that film.' No. It’s Léaud, that’s it. Plus, you can never think of anyone to replace him. Never.

Oh Xavier. You have fine taste in actors (I certainly consider Léaud among the finest) and are sexy as hell. Why oh why can't I see your movies here in America yet? I'm like three hours from the border; this shouldn't be so difficult! I just need to know if my attraction to you is warranted by your talent. Because I have standards. Stop laughing and look at these pictures.

Random Top 10: Should-Be Criterions

A couple of days ago, Barnes & Noble announced their regular Criterion 50% Off Sale, sending a legion of cinema nerds into a buying frenzy. I'm pacing myself throughout the sale, buying only a couple at a time so I don't go into massive debt. Today I picked up A Christmas Tale and Chungking Express, expanding my Criterion family from four to six:

My first born, and, not surprisingly, my favorite. This is the first thing I would grab if my house was on fire.

The rest of my children.

Anyways, with this sale going on, everyone is in a Criterion frenzy, so what better time than to start talking suggestions for future releases? I know that Criterion has been hit hard by the recession, forced to release a large amount of "mainstream" foreign arthouse flicks just to get by. But once things start to turn around, and they don't have to worry so much about trying to maintain a proper cashflow, here are some films I really hope they can get their hands on and give the Criterion treatment.

10. David Fincher Music Videos
Criterion is known for releasing unusual "speciality" collections--most notably two collections of avant garde works by Stan Brakhage--so why not music videos, an artform in its own right, this go-around? During his height in the late 80's/early 90's, David Fincher was the indisputable master of the artform. With Madonna's 'Vogue' and 'Express Yourself,' George Michael's 'Freedom' and Paula Abdul's 'Cold Hearted Snake' under his belt, among many other masterpiece I'm sure, this collection would be fascinating to say the least.

09. Saratoga Trunk
I've already said my piece about the film, now if only everyone could see it besides the occasional showing on TCM. This is the sort of divisive film Criterion should be taking a chance on every once in awhile.





08. [Safe]
I don't know if this me being oblivious or what, but I simply can't find a DVD of this to see. And watching Julianne Moore suffer under some harsh auteur's guiding hand is always a pleasure.







07. King Vidor Silents
The most consistently interesting director working at any of the studios during the silent era was, without a doubt, King Vidor. He wasn't exactly an artistic visionary, but no one could craft a smart, entertaining crowd pleaser like he could. My dream collection would contain three of his masterpieces currently unavailable anywhere on DVD: the epic WWI romance The Big Parade, the "experimental" look at the life of one ordinary couple The Crowd and his playful jab at the movie industry of the silent era Show People. All three of these are exceptional, underseen films that would vastly benefit from a Criterion release (as opposed to an eventual release somewhere down the road, if ever, from MGM that will receive absolutely no fanfare).




06. The Green Room
Truffaut already has a massive amount of his filmography available through Criterion, but this title has alluded release in America and it's the one film of his I haven't seen I'm most curious about. The plot--a journalist is so obsessed with his long dead wife he dedicates a room in his house as a shrine to her--sounds so completely atypical from anything Truffaut ever did. A great curiosity indeed.




05. Family Diary
While Criterion makes most of their money off releasing films by BergmanGodardFelliniTruffaut, this also affords them the opportunity to highlight smaller, more idiosyncratic directors. Case in point: Valerio Zurlini, who made this positively fascinating melodrama with Criterion favorite Marcello Mastroianni and Jacques Perrin. The plot isn't exactly earth shattering, but I think it's one of the finest studies of sibling relationships I've ever seen.

04. The Servant
This male version of Persona with even more homoeroticism is sadly out of print on DVD. And the world needs more Dirk Bogarde being über gay and über creepy.

03. Buster Keaton Collection
With Criterion releasing their own collection of Charlie Chaplin's film, just a few years after another fine set was released with a multitude of extras, I think it's fitting that they soon honor the other king of silent comedy with his own collection. A Buster Keaton collection is perhaps even more urgent since the only box set with all his films isn't very good. The prints are scratchy and in obvious need of restoration and there are no extras to speak of. I would love for a whole disc of documentaries about his legacy and interviews with him talking about his work (if they even exist).


02. The Mother and the Whore
According to legend, this post-New Wave film contains Jean-Pierre Léaud's best performance. Enough said, yes?


01. Face to Face
According to legend, this little seen Bergman contains the greatest performance from Liv Ullmann as a psychologist who goes gloriously off the deep end. And considering this is the same woman who brought us Persona, Scenes from a Marriage and Autumn Sonata, this must be one hell of a feat. Depriving us Ullmann devotees of this (supposed) treasure is a crime against humanity. We want Liv and we want her now!

Actor Devotionals: Jean-Pierre Léaud

The French New Wave was a film movement in early 1960’s France that broke all of the conventions of traditional movie making. Sick of prestigious studio films whose sole aim was to make money rather than present a distinct point of view, the New Wave filmmakers created films they wanted to see. Influenced by the Italian neo-realism movement, these directors worked outside the confines of a studio set, shooting right on the streets of Paris with natural lighting and handheld cameras. And Jean-Pierre Léaud was there right from the start: he was 14 when he played Antoine Doinel, the troubled and misguided youth in François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, easily the greatest film about childhood ever made. The image of the New Wave, at least to the established guard, was that of a “youth gone wild”--both Truffaut and Godard, the movement’s two iconoclasts, were in their late 20’s/early 30’s when they began making films--and Léaud became a child of this New Wave. Not theatrically trained, he possessed a certain type of naturalism that worked magically with the sort of world the French New Wave sought to create. With no prior experience, he learned as he went, completely at the will of the director. And was he ever popular: between 1959 and 1973, he worked with cinematic giants such as Truffaut, Godard, Jacques Rivette, Jean Eustache, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci. Who besides Nicole Kidman can boast that wide of a variety of auteurs in such a short period?

One of the reasons Léaud was so popular with all of these directors was the fact that he was basically a blank canvas to be used in any way the director wanted. That’s not necessarily a slight against him; actually, it’s one of the things I find most fascinating about him as an actor. Armed with an array of mannerisms, both vocal (a tendency to shout at the camera like an impassioned politician) and physical (Kristen Stewart of Twilight fame obviously took notes on the way he runs his fingers through his hair in most of his films), that would limit most actors, Léaud was able to use them to his advantage. These mannerisms are present in nearly all of his films, yet he creates radically different characters that work in their respective film. With the director providing a strong enough context for Léaud and his characteristics, he was able to play both the happy-go-lucky youth in Stolen Kisses and the radical, blindingly head-strong Communist in La Chinoise without anyone questioning his acting ability.

His lack of pretense made him the perfect actor for an auterial-driven movement like the French New Wave (and the period of European filmmaking that followed). Films like Godard's experimental Le Gai Savoir and Pasolini's Porcile are not actor-driven pieces and only require a presence like Léaud's to deliver the director's true message. With Le Gai Savoir, he is literally nothing more than a figurehead as Godard's infamous "return to zero" abandons all notions of not only plot but sets, props and normal sound cues. The film is fascinating in parts, frustrating in others, but, outside of maybe a single one-liner, Léaud's performance is hardly the first thing you think of in hindsight. Porcile is a bit kinder to Léaud in terms of giving him a plot to work around, however, Pasolini's desire to shock is the real star of the film; the idea of a fresh-faced young kid like Léaud being a sexual deviant is explored far more than Léaud's character itself. How many actors of Léaud's generation, both American and European, can you imagine regularly allowing themselves to be reduced to mere decoration for a director's often times uncompromising and controversial vision? Very few, that's how many. Even Léaud's compatriots from the early days of the New Wave, like Belmondo, Karina and Seberg, had moved on to more mainstream pictures by this time.

The dichotomy between the Truffaut Léaud and the Godard Léaud is perhaps one of the most speculated about portions of his filmography. I once read somewhere that Léaud saw Truffaut as his father and Godard as his uncle and, judging by his appearances in each of their films, that analogy makes sense in more ways than one. Truffaut often cast him as an extension of himself, a hopeless romantic searching for the perfect love in an imperfect world. You can almost see his role for Léaud as a way of “teaching” him life lessons that a father should. In Antoine et Colette, Truffaut is teaching Léaud about the pain of unrequited love. The rejection may hurt, he seems to be saying, but there are plenty of fish in the sea. Bed and Board, the fourth installment of the Antoine Doinel series, seems to be showing him that relationships are never easy and comfortable grooves are never permanent. Godard, on the other hand, was the cool uncle showing Léaud things that his father wouldn’t find appropriate. Masculin féminin seems to be a fun, almost light springboard to the radical politics that invaded both their later collaborations and personal lives. Week End finds Léaud dressed up in Napoleonic garb reciting endless political nonsense in a field where no one can hear him, something Truffaut, no doubt, would have found too preposterous for him to do in one of his films.

Over the years, Léaud found ways to subtly portray each of these men who were so instrumental in shaping his career. As a child of the New Wave, he was often called upon in his later career to portray a figurehead, a relic even, of that era. His identity was so tied up with the New Wave, Léaud's presence alone could immediately bring the viewer into the era. In Bertolucci's 1972 film Last Tango in Paris, Léaud portrayed the boyfriend of Maria Schneider before she hooked up with Marlon Brando, a New Wave filmmaker embarking on a new project. If anything, his performance here seems to be a riff on the Godard persona. Léaud's character is completely pre-occupied with his film and everything in his life comes second to capturing his footage his precise way. Many of his conversations with Schneider end with Léaud launching into a long, rambling monologue about the nature of cinema and its connection to love and life, which sounds exactly like something Godard, using Léaud as his stand in, would have made him recite in one of their films together. In short, the character is a bit of a jerk who holds film and intellectualism above everything in his life--even personal relationships. The reason for this blunt characterization may lie in the fact that, as Truffaut hinted in his correspondence from the time, there might have a riff between the two over some personal matter.

When Léaud took on Truffaut in Olivier Assayas' Irma Vep, he was considerably kinder in his portrayal. The two of them always had a complicated, complex, indescribable relationship, one that extends beyond the typical director/muse relationship. After The 400 Blows, Truffaut, for all intents and purposes, became Léaud's father and they became mutually dependent on each other--both financially and emotionally. The two became so intertwined (at least in my mind) that, looking at pictures of them over the years, they almost seem to have merged into one indiscernible being, Persona style. When Truffaut died in 1983, Léaud was a complete wreck. Irma Vep seems to be his way of both working through his feelings about Truffaut's death while also honoring his memory in an interesting way. The director he plays here is a New Wave filmmaker who hasn't been successful, either financially or artistically, in a number of years. His new project is a remake of the 1915 silent serial Irma Vep and, as he has decided to shoot the film without sound, he is quite excited about the project's possibilities. As the film is shooting, however, people around him are not enthused about what has been shot; it looks like this project will add to his list of recent disappointments. The parallels to Truffaut's later career are unmistakable: after redefining cinema in the early 60's, he spent the rest of his career defending his work when he moved beyond that style of filmmaking. But the relationship between Léaud and Maggie Cheung, the actress chosen to portray Irma, is perhaps the most touching aspect of this homage to Truffaut. The two of them have only known each other for a short period of time, yet an almost unspeakable bond develops between them. There is no outpouring of emotion but, rather, a silent trust that can only come about between a director and his actor. When Léaud is carted off to a rest home after a mental breakdown, Cheung is genuinely saddened at the loss of this mentor.

What is remarkable about Léaud and his career is that even after fifty years in the business, we know relatively nothing about his personal life. There are no major biographies on him and even minor glimpses into his life have been prevented from going public (all of his correspondence with Truffaut was noticeably absent in a publication from a few years ago). This makes him all the more fascinating because the only way we can glean anything from him is through his performances. As a director’s lump of clay, however, to mold into whatever he needs for the film, we do not really get a sense of who Léaud is on screen either. Therefore, Jean-Pierre Léaud is one of the few movie stars who is completely impenetrable. Some may find this lack of connection off-putting, but I find this rarity to be something that deserves praise and contemplation. And in today’s digital age, will we ever find a star completely guarded as Jean-Pierre Léaud again?

Top Rentals of 2009

While, more or less, the films of 2009 have been generally disappointing, the best of my film rentals from previous years were everything 2009 wasn't: exciting, electric, and thought provoking. I find that the older and crankier I get, the harsher my grading becomes, so color me surprised that I ended up with seven A-worthy films (two of which came over the same weekend!) at the end of the year. Without further ado, here are, in a rough descending order, the 22 best film rentals I saw in 2009. If you haven't seen these films, I urge you to stop everything you are doing and check them out now. Why suffer through 2009's shit crop of bad films when you can enjoy these flicks?

A's
Masculin féminin
Jean-Luc Godard's wild mix of sexual politics, male/female relationships, war and 60's pop culture is both the precursor to his wacky later political films like Week End and Tout Va Bien and the main reason why I want to live in 60's France. Breathless may be Godard's masterpiece from a technical stand point, but Masculin féminin is simply my favorite from his massive filmography. Bonus points: Jean-Pierre Léaud's best non-Antoine Doinel performance.

I'll Cry Tomorrow
A clinically insane biopic of alcoholic Lillian Roth led by a ballsy, go-for-broke performance from Susan Hayward. I don't think Intervention has ever made alcoholism look this disgusting and degrading. My original thoughts here.

The Servant
The male precursor to Bergman's Persona. Young playboy James Fox hires my imaginary boyfriend Dirk Bogarde as his butler but, eventually, relationship dynamics change to the point that we are not sure who is the master and who is the slave anymore. The third act is so indescribably nutsy it has to be seen to be believed.

Ballad of a Soldier
Between this and The Cranes Are Flying, it appears that the go-to country for dreamy romantic melodramas in the late 50's was, of all places, the Soviet Union.

A Woman is a Woman
The random in-jokes, the way the characters play to the camera and the free-flow narrative all on display in Godard's New Wave homage to the musical exemplifies why I love his work.

Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom
I still have nightmares about this film. If you think you've seen it all, try watching Salò without getting the urge to vomit. My original thoughts here.

Design for Living
The charming and dapper Gary Cooper and Fredric March match wits with the perpetually underrated Miriam Hopkins in this utterly hilarious (and quite risqué) Ernst Lubitsch comedy.

A-'s
Chungking Express
The first Wong Kar-wai film I've seen that I fell hook, line and sinker for. The two sequences could hardly be any more different, but they both beautifully portrayed the heartbreak and pain that goes with being in love.

Nanook of the North
The first big "documentary" (there's still quite a bit of debate about that) also happens to be one of the most entertaining and all-around engrossing films of the silent era. Who knew that Eskimoes lived such fascinating (and perilous) lives?

Two for the Road
If you get past the annoying British New Wave camera tracks, you will be surprised to discover a smart, mercilessly funny film chronicling the ups and downs of marriage. Audrey Hepburn has never been better, both as an an actress and as a style icon (oh that big hair and those sunglasses!) and Albert Finney was surprisingly bearable, even engaging in his best moments.

The King of Comedy
Minus The Departed, this is probably the most fun I've ever had with a Scorsese film. The satire is dead-on and timelier than ever in today's web-based celebrity culture.

Beaches
Given its camp reputation (and the fact it stars Bette Midler and directed by Gerry Marshall), I expected a shameless melodrama in the vein of The Notebook. Well color me surprised at how emotionally honest and unmanipulative Beaches is. When the tearjerking finale came about, it earned whatever tears it was able to generate.

Valentino
Another fantastic film about the perils of celebrity. Ken Russell's biopic of Rudolph Valentino may not be historically accurate, but it's one of the few films I've seen that truly captures the spirit and insanity of 1920's Hollywood.

Joshua
Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga star in this indie horror movie about the horror of a family breaking up amidst an upper-class surroundings. I was so entranced by this movie I kept it an extra day and watched it again; it did not disappoint on a second viewing. My original thoughts here.

The Marriage of Maria Braun
I really need to see more Fassbinder films because I'm two for three so far and the only one I wasn't crazy about (Querelle) at least had Brad Davis as a hunky homosexual sailor who gets fucked in the ass. Maria Braun boasts a fantastic lead performance from Hanna Schygulla as a headstrong woman trying to survive the aftermath of Nazi Germany.

Intruder in the Dust
A quiet, unassuming and surprisingly down-to-earth take on race relations in post-WWII America from, of all studios, MGM. For people appalled by Hollywood's treatment of blacks during the Studio Era, seek this one out to get the bitter taste out of your mouth.

2 Days in Paris
When talking about 2007's cinematic treats, why does no one talk about this gem of a romantic comedy starring and directed by Julie Delpy? Another underrated film I cannot recommend enough.

Kings and Queen
I wasn't as entranced by it as I was by A Christmas Tale, but Desplechin's film before that masterpiece ain't too shabby either. Emmanuelle Devos has such a tricky character to navigate (it's never quite clear whether she is the martyr or the villain of this piece) but she nails it without so much as breaking a sweat.

Best of the B+'s
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
I was expecting a pretentious "art" film that I would struggle to get through but, instead, ended up with a heartbreaking doomed romance that I couldn't get enough of.

Tokyo Story
I've seen a couple other Ozu films and was decidedly underwhelmed by them. Tokyo Story, on the other hand, completely captivated me. Setsuko Hara was an unexpected delight as the dutiful sister who is the only sibling who doesn't blatantly ignore her parents when they make the journey from their country home to the city to visit them.

Two English Girls
Truffaut's massively underrated tragedy about a Frenchman (Jean-Pierre Léaud) who spends years romantically involved with two sisters. Perpetually downbeat, Two English Girls is almost too heartbreaking to watch. Bonus points: the costumes are absolutely to die for. I seriously want JPL's wardrobe.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
This film is worth it simply for the final scene, a verbal throwdown between Dame Maggie Smith's shady teacher and Pamela Franklin as her disgruntled former student wise to her manipulative ways. The inspirational teacher drama with a twist.

Actor Devotionals: Jean-Pierre Léaud

A new series devoted to the actors and actresses who inspire me to continue watching and writing about the movies. Without these stars, cinema would be a little less bearable.

If you asked a group of cinephiles who their favorite French New Wave icon is, the amount of answers, unsurprisingly, would be wide and varied. Some of the “out there” members of this voting bloc might go with a quirky choice such as A Woman is a Woman star Jean-Claude Brialy. For the most part, however, a good majority of the votes would belong to Jean-Luc Godard’s muse (and wife for a brief period of time) Anna Karina and the sexy, rugged beacon of 60’s masculinity Jean-Paul Belmondo. As much as I love the above choices, for some time now, my heart has belonged to one New Wave icon alone: Jean-Pierre Léaud.

To the casual filmgoer, he may only be familiar as the troubled and misguided youth in Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, easily the greatest film about childhood ever made, but he actually had, and continues to have, a long and successful career after that film. I would argue, in fact, that Léaud, not Belmondo or Karina, was the ultimate New Wave actor. Although not theatrically trained, he possessed a certain type of naturalism that worked magically with the sort of world the French New Wave (and other highly respected European auteurs) sought to create. And was he ever popular: between 1959 and 1973, he worked with cinematic giants such as François Truffaut, Godard, Jacques Rivette, Jean Eustache, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci. Who besides Nicole Kidman can boast that wide of a variety of auteurs in such a short period?


One of the reasons Léaud was so popular with all of these directors was the fact that he was basically a blank canvas to be used in any way the director wanted. That’s not necessarily a slight against him; actually, it’s one of the things I find most fascinating about him as an actor. Armed with an array of mannerisms, both vocal (a tendency to shout at the camera like an impassioned politician) and physical (you could really make a drinking game out of the number of times he runs his fingers through his hair in any given movie), that would limit most actors, Léaud was able to use them to his advantage. I still marvel at the way the same boy who appeared so down-trodden and hopeless in The 400 Blows grew up to become both the happy-go-lucky youth in Stolen Kisses and the radical, blindingly head-strong Communist in La Chinoise.


The dichotomy between the Truffuat Léaud and the Godard Léaud is perhaps one of the most speculated about portions of his filmography. I once read somewhere that Léaud saw Truffaut as his father and Godard as his uncle and, judging by his appearances in each of their films, that analogy makes sense in more ways than one. Truffaut often cast him as an extension of himself, a hopeless romantic searching for the perfect love in an imperfect world, and you can almost see his role for Léaud as a way of “teaching” him life lessons that a father should. In Antoine et Colette, it is all about the pain of unrequited love and, although this one may hurt, there are plenty of other fish in the sea. Bed and Board, the fourth installment of the Antoine Doinel series, seems to be showing him that relationships are never easy and comfortable grooves are never permanent. Godard, on the other hand, was the cool uncle showing Léaud things that his father wouldn’t find appropriate. Masculin féminin seems to be a fun, almost light springboard to the radical politics that invaded both their later collaborations and personal lives. Week End finds Léaud dressed up in Napoleonic garb reciting endless political nonsense in a field where no one can hear him, something Truffaut, no doubt, would have found too preposterous for him to do in one of his films.


What is remarkable about Léaud and his career is that even after fifty years in the business, we know relatively nothing about his personal life. There are no major biographies on him and even minor glimpses into his life have been prevented from going public (all of his correspondence with Truffaut was noticeably absent in a publication from a few years ago). This makes him all the more fascinating because the only way we can glean anything from him is through his performances. As a director’s lump of clay, however, to mold into whatever he needs for the film, we do not really get a sense of who Léaud is on screen either. Therefore, Jean-Pierre Léaud is one of the few movie stars who is completely impenetrable. Some may find this lack of connection off-putting, but I find this rarity to be something that deserves praise and contemplation. And in the age of digital media, will we ever find a star as completely guarded as Jean-Pierre Léaud again?

The Saddest Paragraph Ever

This madness would become part of Léaud's real life and a feature of his onscreen persona as it developed from the early 1990s. With Truffaut's death in October 1984, Léaud lost his mentor and protector. His dependence on this surrogate father had been reinforced by the director's insistence on paying him a monthly allowance rather than by the film; Truffaut academic Paul Michaud recalls that one month Truffaut withheld the money because of the state of the actor's personal hygiene and that the 35-year-old Léaud came to ask Truffaut to cut his hair and nails. Unsurprisingly, a period of psychological turmoil followed the film maker's death. Neighbours in Léaud's Parisian apartment block were said to have seen him stand ing naked in the courtyard waving a crucifix and bawling 'Back, Satan!' while in 1987 he assaulted an elderly woman he believed was spying on him with a flowerpot. He was given a three month suspended sentence; the psychiatric report stated that he was depressed following Truffaut's death.

I was doing some research and gathering some background info for a piece I am planning to write about Jean-Pierre Léaud and I found this article from Sight and Sound. Isn't that whole paragraph just distressing to hear? I like to think of my JPL as the sweet, happy-go-lucky in Stolen Kisses, not someone as sad and almost pathetic as Norma Desmond. I'm really curious to read a biography about him should one ever come out (and it's not looking likely since Léaud didn't even want his correspondence with Truffaut to appear in Truffaut's book of correspondence) but if it's filled with sad things like this, I don't know how I'll ever finish it.

I'm putting the citation here because I found the article through my school's database and I don't know if everyone can get to it through the interweb. I wanted to make sure that Mr. Darke got his due credit for writing such a great piece. If anyone is curious about it, email me and I'll pass it on.

Chris Darke. (2006, October). Jean-Pierre Léaud: LORD OF THE LEFT BANK. Sight and Sound, 16(10), 36,38-39,1. Retrieved September 11, 2009, from Research Library. (Document ID: 1149195741).

Pig Fucker

Pier Paolo Pasolini's Porcile is certainly a strange film to start exploring the filmography of one of the most polarizing and controversial filmmakers of all time. I always intended to see Saló first but never had access to a copy. However, once I saw that my beloved Jean-Pierre Léaud had done a film with Pasolini and it was available on DVD, I knew I had to see it immediately. The film itself is...interesting, to say the very least. I'm actually not quite sure what to make of it. Porcile revolves around two unconnected stories: one involves a medieval soldier (I think) wandering around a barren unnamed land eating people while the other is about the bored, disillusioned child (played by JPL) of a rich German industrialist who spends his free time in the local pigsty. To say that nothing happens in this film would be an understatement--the soldier wanders around for a good portion of the time while JPL just kind of stands around talking with his female friend/love interest about disconnected socialistic ideas mixed with thoughts about their relationship--but I still found it all weirdly engaging. If you know me, that's a high compliment indeed since 98% of the time I need some kind of narrative in order to get me interested in a film. Obviously, Pasolini knows what the hell he's doing since even though (1) I had no idea what was going on most of the time, (2) the camerawork and editing were drastically barebones, (3) my beloved JPL was dubbed by this stupid-sounding Italian guy, (4) the cannibal story was vaguely dull and (5) the DVD transfer was a complete joke with momentary pauses between reel changes and the fact that TWO OF THE REELS WERE IN THE WRONG ORDER, and I still never had the urge to turn the movie off like I have with other vaguely similar art house titles like L'Avventura or 2001: A Space Odyssey.

What most struck me about Porcile was how its controversial subjects of cannibalism and bestiality aren't exactly as taboo as they once were. Sure, they're not accepted by 99% of all civilized countries, but we've heard about them so much in the past 40 years that we've become jaded and they don't really shock us in the way that they probably did in 1969. I don't believe any of this affects the film since Pasolini isn't going simply for the shock value; we never see Jean-Pierre with the pigs, only vaguely disguised references throughout the movie, and the medieval soldier only eats his victims in long shots. If Pasolini can inject this much interest into such a thin whisp of a plot, and manage not get caught up in his "taboo" subjects, I can only imagine what his (apparently) greater and more well-known work is capable of doing. B-

10 Favorite Movie Characters

A couple of days ago, I whined and manipulated until I got was graciously given a tag to do the Top 10 Favorite Movie Characters meme that's been burning up the interweb of late. The resulting list wasn't as hard to come up with as I originally feared but, to be honest, all I did was go through my DVD collection and just picked 25 characters that jumped out at me and narrowed it down from there. Not much agonizing over here. What I was most fascinated about by my final list was how it was a fairly nice round-up of my two favorite characters: the larger-than-life female and the damaged boy. Hmm....

Let's get started with this before we analyze that to death.

Apologies to the Runners-Up (in no particular order for a solid 25): The Tramp (City Lights), William Canfield, Jr. (Steamboat Bill, Jr.), Lina Lamont (Singin' in the Rain), Effie White (Dreamgirls), Maggie "The Cat" (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Erin Brockovich (Erin Brockovich), Go-Go (Kill Bill Volume 1), Sharpay Evans (High School Musical 2), Miriam Aarons (The Women), Bonnie Parker (Bonnie and Clyde), Norman Bates (Psycho), Mr. Aoki (Shall We Dansu?), Grandma with Crazy Pink Hair (Castle in the Sky), Regina George (Mean Girls)

Susan Vance in Bringing Up Baby
Quite possibly the greatest concoction ever to emerge from a screwball comedy. And you have to admire the lengths she goes to get the man she loves; that's what I call dedication.

Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind
She's a survivor, yo. I really wish I had her determination and drive to get everything she wants out of life, even if she has to lie, steal, cheat or kill to get it.

Margo Channing in All About Eve
This is going to be me in 20 years: the grand, aging diva always ready for every party with a martini in one hand and an arsenal of bitchy one-liners for unsuspecting guests.

Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard
She is big, and that's the way I love her.

Antoine Doinel in Stolen Kisses
Most people would pick Antoine Doinel in his teenage years in The 400 Blows, but I like to imagine my Antoine as the happy-go-lucky young adult in Stolen Kisses. It probably doesn't hurt that his character in this film is roughly the same age I am now and can relate to him on a whole new level than before.

Barbara Jean in Nashville
One of the saddest characters I have ever seen in any film. After all of her scenes, I just feel so bad for her I find it hard to concentrate on any other character with the same amount of attention.

Conrad Jarret in Ordinary People
Every time I watch this movie, and it's probably more often than any sane person needs to, I just want to reach out and comfort this poor guy.

Posh Spice in Spice World
Not only do her line readings ring with hilarity, but this character is quite obviously the starting off point for the "Victoria Beckham" character we all love so dearly (or at least I do).

Velma Kelly in Chicago
Fierce, monstrously talented and, in fact, can do it alone- what's not to love?

Robert Ford in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Strangely relatable and, yet again, another character I feel infinitely sad for everytime they appear on screen and feel this uncontrollable urge to just give them a hug.

20 Actors

About a month ago, I shared my 20 favorite actresses thanks to the wonderful meme that was making the rounds at that time. Well, during the past couple of days, I decided that it was time to give the men some love. The love may not be the same as for the women, but I'm still quite fond of all of these people. Here are my 20 favorite actors of all time:

Groucho, Paul, Jean-Pierre, Claude, Cary
Spencer, Buster, John, Charlie, Jack
Gene, Jean-Paul, Robert, James Cagney, Humphrey
James Dean, Montgomery, Henry, Gary, Marcello

Can You Fix My H-E-A-R-T, 'Cause It's D-A-M-A-G-E-D?

I changed my banner about a week ago. Did anyone notice? Well, it's okay if you didn't, I'm not hurt...really, I'm not. It's just that after having my lovely Stolen Kisses banner up there for months (longer than any other banner I've ever used), I would think that someone would have said something, anything about it.

Excuse me while I run off and cry.

Just kidding, everyone. As much as I loved my old banner, I decided it was time for a change and after watching both Ordinary People and Equus in the same weekend, I finally figured out my new theme: damaged boys. As Jack McFarland once said on an episode of Will & Grace (I believe it was the one where Michael Douglas guest starred, but don't quote me), "I love me some crazies." Well, I stand by that quote and here are four damaged boys that I just want to reach out and make better.

River Phoenix, My Own Private Idaho: I haven't seen this movie in awhile, and even then I wasn't sure how much I liked it, but one thing that will always stick with me is River Phoenix's legendary, achingly sweet performance. That camp fire scene where he just wants Keanu Reeves' character to hold him is one of the most endearing things I've ever seen. I'll hold you if you want me to!

Timothy Hutton, Ordinary People: I just bought a copy of Ordinary People and I'm still not sure why because every time I watch it, I'm an emotional wreck for days afterwards, courtesy of Hutton's psychologically damaged Conrad Jarrett. How can his mother not love someone as vulnerable and needy as him? I'll listen to the story of why you tried to commit suicide and I promise I won't start laughing when those obnoxious guys come in.

Jean-Pierre Léaud, The 400 Blows: Antoine Doinel is pretty much the original damaged teen, right? He lies, steals, plagarizes and runs away from home and yet we still love him throughout the entire film. How is this possible?! Because we want to fix him (well, at least I do) and he's not really that bad of a kid on the inside, just misguided.

Peter Firth, Equus: So he gets sexually turned on by horses, that's not so unusual, right? Well, maybe it is, but that doesn't mean we can't try to fix him. He's arguably the most damaged of the four and it would definitely take the most work, but isn't it worth it? I think so. I feel like a perv for saying this, but that scene where's he's riding that horse naked was very sexual even when it shouldn't have been.